


like all the things you can fit inside a memory

by seditonem



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Age Difference, I Feel So Important., M/M, The Last Olympian Spoilers, Why Are Tags On This Website Always Capitalised
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-28
Updated: 2014-04-28
Packaged: 2018-01-21 03:57:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1536668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seditonem/pseuds/seditonem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Spoilers for the Last Olympian) percy meets luke's reincarnation, only to find he's practically the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	like all the things you can fit inside a memory

**Author's Note:**

> looking back on this now it all seems highly dubious.

Most demigods don’t hit thirty, Percy realises. He’s on thirty-two – which is pushing things. It’s his birthday, and the slow sunrise makes the mother of pearl ceiling in the Poseidon cabin glimmer, first blue, then green, now burnished silver. The light makes patterns on his hands and blankets. Percy has a moment to wonder if Apollo’s put the sun chariot on auto-pilot, of if he’s just got really good at driving in a straight line all these years, and then he gets up.   
  
He stretches slowly, letting his muscles adjust (yesterday he did a particularly vicious chariot race with one of the older guys in the Ares cabin, and invincibility doesn’t cover stiffness), dresses, and steps out into the open air. Camp’s pretty much deserted, since most of the regular campers are back in their normal lives, with normal families and schools, trying to blend in until next summer. Or at least survive. Percy’s mom lives in a beach house in California with Paul. He does private coaching for some kids, and Sally spends most of her time writing. Percy IMs them sometimes, but mostly he prefers to visit, when he has the time.   
  
And Annabeth? Still building her version of heaven, Percy reminds himself. She’s a perfectionist at heart, and the fact that invincibility makes him appear to age slower than her didn’t help their relationship either. He looks around twenty-five – but perhaps that’s just good genes.   
  
Still, camp isn’t totally deserted, he notes, as he strolls past the Big House. Chiron’s talking to a boy, a tall, slim boy, who can’t be more than 16, Percy guesses, and the centaur is pointing out features of the camp. Percy swerves closer to introduce himself, and stops abruptly.   
  
Something tugs in his gut, painful and hot. He catches Chiron’s eye -  _yes, you see it too_  - and his legs feel heavy as he approaches again. A relieved-looking satyr nods at Percy from the steps of the House, drinking a latte like his life depends on it.   
  
“Percy, happy birthday,” smiles Chiron, but his voice sounds strained.   
  
“Percy Jackson,” the boy interrupts, staring at Percy. He doesn’t sound inquisitive, only assured. As if he’s met Percy before. As if they’re old friends, and any second now he’s going to smile and hug Percy and slap him on the back and start talking about how it’s been such a long time since they last met and –   
  
“Nice to meet you,” Percy says, forcing a smile. His voice sticks in his throat and he rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. “Sorry,” he shrugs, “you just – you remind me of someone I knew.”   
  
“Who would that be?” the boy asks, but he sounds like he already knows. Percy feels a shudder go up his spine and turns to leave.   
  
“An old friend,” is all he says, and then turns back to the boy. “What’s your name?”  
  
“Luke,” the boy says.  
  
“Of course,” nods Percy, and flees.   
  
#  
  
 _”You can’t just try and kill someone and expect them to forgive you!” Percy shouts. Luke shrugs.  
  
“What else do you want to do? Fight about it?” he asks, like it’s the stupidest thing in the world.   
  
Percy has Riptide uncapped in two seconds, but Luke’s faster, pinning him against the wall.   
  
It’s not the first cut that’s the deepest, it’s the first kiss. Percy feels it all through his body, imprinting onto his bones.   
  
Luke says nothing._  
  
#  
  
That evening he forgoes supper and goes to the beach, bringing a bunch of grapes to snack on as he sits by the water’s edge, his toes in the surf. He doesn’t have long to wait; Hermes arrives just after sunset, flopping down next to Percy and sighing contentedly.   
  
“So,” Percy begins, conversationally, “how many strings did you pull?”   
  
“Only a couple,” Hermes sighs. He looks almost old, the lines at the corners of his eyes more pronounced. “I slipped into the underworld while Hades was partying in Olympus and found Luke, then managed to distract the guards and get him reborn without drinking from the Lethe.”   
  
“Why as one of your children?” Percy asks, tapping his thumbs against his knees. He’s slightly startled by Hermes’ honesty – they’re acquaintances, but not friends. Percy’s done him some favours over the years, so he expected a certain level of trust, but not this.   
  
Hermes sighs again. “I wanted – I wanted to give him a second chance.”  
  
“This isn’t a second chance,” Percy spits out, astonished by his own anger. “He looks exactly the same! He sounds the same, he acts the same – you might as well have just pushed his soul back into his old body!”   
  
Martha and George have curled around Hermes’ elbow, but he pushes them back onto the mobile phone and they disappear, sulking.   
  
“Alright,” Hermes replies, “I’ll admit I was selfish. But do you know what it’s like to lose a son, Percy? And to know that you caused him such hurt? Just because it was prophesised, doesn’t mean I have to like it.”   
  
They sit in silence for a while.   
  
“How many other gods know?” Percy asks eventually.   
  
“Dionysus. Hades suspects,” Hermes says, quietly. “If Zeus finds out I assume he’ll set Luke to manual repair work in Olympus.”   
  
“Perhaps you should tell them, explain things,” Percy shrugs. Hermes shakes his head sadly.  
  
“You can’t change destinies, Percy. That’s what they’ll think I’m doing.”   
  
“How much does he remember?”   
  
“Almost nothing – it appears something went wrong when we bypassed the Lethe,” Hermes says, and he looks directly at Percy. “Just – help him, this time, son of Poseidon,” sighs the messenger god, and disappears.   
  
#  
  
Dionysus says nothing about Luke. Chiron watches him at all times, almost to the point of stalking. Percy mostly avoids him, refusing to call him by his name when talking to Chiron, for a reason he can’t quite say. He spends most of his time in the ocean, talking long walks past shipwrecks and petting stray sharks. The ocean is his home, and it feels more friendly every day. Sometimes he considers joining his father in the ocean kingdom, perhaps asking for immortality and staying on to govern some part of the sea – but that would be like running away, and he’s always had a bit of a problem with that.   
  
At the end of the boy’s first week at Camp, Percy walks out of the surf and comes face to face with Luke. A live fish corkscrews desperately out of his shirt pocket and lands in Luke’s hand. The demigod raises an eyebrow, drops the fish back into the sea, and turns to Percy, folding his arms across his chest.  
  
“You’re avoiding me,” he says. Percy sidesteps him but is followed up the dunes. He doesn’t bother denying the accusation. “Do you have some sort of grudge against my dad?” pesters Luke, keeping pace with Percy.   
  
“Hermes is great,” Percy shrugs, heading for the arena.   
  
“They say you’re invincible,” Luke says, changing the subject. “What’s it like?”   
  
“You of all people should know,” Percy snaps, rounding on the boy, and then pulls up short. “Hey,” he sighs, “sorry, man. I’m just tired. Invincibility requires a lot of naps.” Luke doesn’t look convinced.   
  
“Chiron said you go to the water to calm down,” he mutters.   
  
“Doesn’t always work,” Percy replies, hands in the pockets of his frayed old jeans. He can’t keep his eyes off Luke, not now that he’s right in front of him. They’re almost identical, minus the scar. This boy has darker hair, a dirty blond, and his skin is darker too, Mediterranean. Percy wants to touch him, see if he’s real. He wonders if Hermes had this planned from the second he knew Luke would die – and why Luke went along with the whole thing.   
  
There’s a long silence.   
  
“You ever ridden a Pegasus?” Percy asks, suddenly.   
  
#  
  
 _They have stolen moments. Luke says, “There are no sides in war.” Percy ignores him.  
  
Luke says, “Be here tomorrow night.”  
  
Percy ignores him. _  
  
#  
  
August passes. September drags on; October arrives with varying degrees of cold, and November passes too quickly. Percy teaches Luke to fight – finding an odd sense of déjà vu about it all – and helps him master the lava climbing wall in his spare time. He finds himself eating at the Hermes table more often than not, listening to Luke’s stories about his life before camp, the monsters he attracted, and his mother. She sounds nothing like May, Percy notes, and wonders how the woman is. If Chiron has any worries about how much time he spends with Luke, he says nothing, and Percy isn’t sure if that’s worse.   
  
They play capture the flag – Luke and the Hermes cabin along with some of the Ares cabin, verses Percy and a few of the Athena kids. Mrs O’Leary, slightly bedraggled and panting, always accompanies them. Percy always manages to get himself on an opposite team to Luke. He doesn’t know why, but it’s just comforting to know some things never change. Sometimes he sits out, preferring to umpire with Chiron rather than participate with a whole lot of kids who’re about half his age.   
  
One evening he sends Mrs O’Leary ahead, wearing Annabeth’s borrowed Yankees cap, and jogs lightly through the forest, trying to keep an eye out for unfair play.   
  
“Freeze!” a voice says, and Percy obliges, waiting for the kid to reveal themselves. Luke appears, pointing his sword at a patch of empty air. Percy leans against a juniper tree, waiting for him to realise there’s nothing there. Luke pokes the air and looks slightly disappointed, and then draws circles in the ground with the tip of his sword.   
  
 _Why’s he alone?_  Percy wonders, and then Luke sits down on a rock and leans backwards, tilting his head back to look at the moon. He looks pale as stone, Percy thinks, and his heart stops. The boy looks like the ending of every single one of Percy’s nightmares of Olympus, with a cursed blade and a hero and the feeling of regret. It’s the same face, the same quiet, reserved expression with the slight smile.   
  
He can’t breathe. His chest has iron bands across it, and no matter how he struggles he can’t move closer to Luke, reassure himself that this time he’s not dead.  
  
“Luke,” he gasps, and the boy in the clearing sits up, sword at the ready.   
  
Percy flees to the sea.  
  
#  
  
Riptide falls to the sand. The Yankees cap follows, and then his armour and borrowed shield. The trees rustle like they’re trying to tell him, but Percy ignores them, wading out into the tide.  
  
“Percy!” someone shouts, but it’s probably just a memory. Probably just a dream. He wades in deeper, until he’s under the waves. It’s not cold, more like a lukewarm bath.   
  
Suddenly he becomes aware of splashing. Someone’s followed him in, and Percy turns slowly, able to barely make out the figure of a boy. He tries to summon the tides and push him back to shore, but for once, his powers fail him. Percy sighs, gives up, and summons air bubbles to form around the boy’s head so he can breathe.   
  
“Stop following me,” Percy says, quietly, expanding the bubble so it fits around both their heads and he can talk to Luke. The boy smiles, the corners of his mouth uneven. A crooked smile.   
  
“You forgot this,” he replies, handing Riptide over. “The tide that catches you by surprise.”   
  
Their fingers touch on the hilt. Percy breathes out suddenly, his body burning from the contact.  
  
“Why do you hate me?” asks Luke.   
  
“I don’t,” Percy frowns, and Luke sighs.   
  
“You pretend to like me – you spend all this time with me, and then sometimes you just,” he pauses, looks away. “You just go, sometimes.”   
  
They’re silent.   
  
“Who am I?” Luke whispers. Percy stares at him, and Luke looks back, his eyes identical to the boy Percy watched die.   
  
“What do you mean?” he asks.   
  
“When you talk to me,” Luke begins, and then pauses again, “you talk to me like I’m somebody else. And – and things you say, they sound familiar. I remember things, people, people I’ve never met. They feel familiar.”   
  
Silence.  
  
“And I know about the River Styx.”  
  
“Everyone knows about the Styx,” Percy shrugs, but he feels uneasy. Luke looks him dead in the eye and shakes his head.  
  
“No,” he says, “I know about  _Annabeth_  and the Styx.”   
  
When Percy can think clearly again, he finds his hand is cupping Luke’s jaw, his thumb tracing his cheek as if to wipe away a smudge of dirt.   
  
“You look almost exactly the same as you did then,” he whispers. Are those tears in Luke’s eyes, he wonders, and decides it doesn’t matter.   
  
“Who am I?” Luke repeats, his voice no more than a whisper.   
  
“A hero,” Percy says, quietly.   
  
#  
  
 _Years pass. The only glimpses Percy has of Luke are in dreams, sometimes in passing. They don’t talk. Percy discovers girls instead. They’re easier to understand than Luke._  
  
#  
  
The new year comes and goes without much fuss. Percy welcomes new half-bloods, finds a mate for Mrs O’Leary, and visits Nico and Rachel in their New York apartment.   
  
Luke stays at camp.  
  
They don’t talk.  
  
#  
  
Percy arrives back at camp on the last day of June. The sun makes the crests of the waves into diamonds, turns the sand into liquid gold, seashells caught in the molten fire. Percy leaves the waves with regret and walks onto the shore.   
  
“I don’t get wet in water,” he says, staring at Luke’s proffered towel.   
  
“Oh, right,” Luke says. Percy wants to touch him, to ruffle his hair, but he does nothing. Luke curls his toes in the sand, his bare calves covered in drying sea-water. The salt is collecting on his skin.   
  
“I saw my dad,” he blurts out, and Percy turns to watch the sea with him.   
  
“Oh?”   
  
“I asked him about, well, me,” continues Luke.  
  
“What’d he tell you?” asks Percy, wondering if the other gods know yet.   
  
“The short version,” Luke shrugs. Percy grins.   
  
“What? Annoyed, rebelled, died?” he asks, and Luke elbows him but smiles nonetheless.  
  
“A little more detailed than that, but thank gods I didn’t come to you for information.”   
  
The sun begins to set.   
  
“Annabeth’s gonna freak when she sees you,” Percy sighs. “If she ever comes back from Olympus.”   
  
“Is that why you broke up?” Luke asks, squinting at the sunset. Percy sighs.  
  
“Not really.”  
  
“You’re going to tell me, one day,” Luke says, confidently. He sounds so young, Percy thinks. The old Luke would have just got it out of him right then and there, wheedled and sweet-talked his way to the truth.   
  
“Well, you always were very persuasive,” he smiles.   
  
#  
  
 _By his fifteenth birthday all Percy sees of Luke is dreams.  
  
Perhaps it’s better that way, he thinks. Sometimes it feels like Luke’s letting him see, like he enjoys having Percy near him, even if it’s in the context of war. _  
  
#  
  
Summer brings the usual influx of half-bloods. Percy fights and helps capture flags and gives training sessions. He even joins Dionysus and Chiron for a couple of card games (and is thrashed every time). But mostly he spends his time in the sea.  
  
“You’ll grow a seaweed beard at this rate,” Chiron sighs, as Percy comes back from yet another walk past the wrecks. He looks worried, but lately Percy’s developed a talent for ignoring things like that.  
  
#  
  
He overhears Luke talking to Chiron one day.  
  
“ – but I need to know,” Luke whines. Percy’s heart clenches.   
  
“Ask him,” Chiron sighs. “He will tell you if he’s ready.” He places a hand on Luke’s shoulder and leaves, trotting off slowly.   
  
“It’s rude to eavesdrop,” Luke says, over his shoulder. “Are you going to tell me?”   
  
By comparison to this, Percy thinks, fighting monsters is easy.  
  
#  
  
 _”I’m going to die,” Luke says. His body, wrapped around Percy’s, feels warm, feverish. Their skin presses together tightly. It reminds Percy of the one summer he was obsessed with gummi sweets, and used to bite them in half, and then rub the sticky bitten area against his lips, pressing the upper and lower lips together until they stuck and he couldn’t open his mouth due to the stickiness.  
  
“This is a dream,” Percy whispers, his mouth pressed against the skin over Luke’s heart.   
  
“Only if you want it to be,” Luke replies. His hands tangle in Percy’s hair. _  
  
#  
  
Thirty-three, Percy thinks. Half evil, he muses, and then gets up. He should IM his mom. He should go and visit Annabeth, see how she’s doing.  
  
He does neither of these things, because at that moment the cabin door flies open and Luke practically falls through, pushing Percy back onto his bed.   
  
“I don’t remember,” he pants, looking desperate. He shakes Percy’s shoulders, looking him in the eye.   
  
“I don’t remember,” he repeats, “but I can re-learn.”   
  
#  
  
Annabeth freaks. Grover turns pale. The gods have a huge argument about the whole thing until Athena points out that Luke remembers nothing, just like he would if rebirth had been done properly. At that point Zeus decides he has a headache and allows Luke to live.   
  
“A second chance,” Athena nods. She stares at Luke, changing to human size to reach out and touch his cheek. “You were good to my daughter, son of Hermes, once upon a time.”   
  
The hall of the gods is empty. Beside Luke, Percy breathes out heavily. “You need a ride home?” he asks, and Luke tries hard not to look like he’s about to cry.   
  
#  
  
“If this is a second chance,” Luke says, a little bitterly, “shouldn’t they give me back my memories so I know what I did wrong the first time?”  
  
Percy smiles, pulling him closer. It’s Luke’s seventeenth birthday, and the weather is appropriately sunny. A light breeze ruffles Luke’s hair. The waves sigh with contentment. Somewhere above them, Apollo’s cruising in the heavens. The rest of the campers are climbing lava walls and fighting and going home.   
  
“What you did wrong,” Percy says, seriously, turning Luke’s head so he can whisper against his lips, “is not wait for me.”   
  
Each kiss they have is another chance, he thinks. And he won’t waste any of them, not this time. 


End file.
